


The One Where They're Breaking and Entering

by SorrySorrySorry



Series: Cooking with The Boys [2]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M, Wittenberg, its always wittenberg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 03:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrySorrySorry/pseuds/SorrySorrySorry
Summary: It's late, they're hungry, and neither has a taste for the typical whoring.





	The One Where They're Breaking and Entering

Though the single window, square and plain, made no competition for the hallowed halls and arched composition of stained glass which blessed the widest halls of Elsinore, the effect of the rain leaking from pane to pane in tempered trails around the prince’s dark silhouette had the same sacred quality. Posed in gentle profile, he was pulled inward in a space that afforded him little in comparison to what he’d grown accustomed to in his youth, yet to him it was portrait of quaint idealism which he found infinite in its comforts. Even now, his eyes glided warmly over the yellowed pages of a borrowed text, chosen solely for its ability to suit his aesthetic image of academia. Here, at Wittenberg, he pursued his dream of what he had decided his life should properly be like as much as he delved into his studies, if not moreso the former.

In reality, his borrowed chambers were among the largest made available to any single student, so much so that Horatio found confidence in peering at him from across the room without being easily discovered. He snuck glances over his translations, watching the development of a smile on the prince’s lips as he found a passage worth marking. There was ample opportunity here, and fire, which could not be so easily said of Horatio’s own miserable lodging. Chin finding its way into the nest of his palm, he took his liberties until the prince’s eyes glided suddenly upward, catching the other’s movements before he could withdraw and return to his studies (the ones he had been stuck on the moment Hamlet chose to sit in view).

With the rain steady pattering behind him, the prince spoke only as loud as he needed; this was a pleasurable shift from his public demeanor, which blossomed into irritating flamboyance in crowds. “What hour is it?” he asked, folding a page over in his book to mark his place.

Shameful realization dawned on Horatio and ran rampant in his expression as he looked beyond the prince to the view framed behind him. The ashy slate of the afternoon cloud cover had, having gone unwatched, quickly turned to soot, though the rain continued to fall. “Surely past ten,” Horatio replied, quickly making the motion to gather his things, papers slipping about beneath his fingertips in his rush. “I’m sorry, my lord, I did not mean to--”

Hamlet raised a hand, halting him. “If your means lay anywhere but here tonight, I’ll have you forget them. Stay, Horatio,” he said, “I plan to make it habitual of you.”

“Habit oft turns to rumor overnight, my lord.”

“So let it. That’s far from the matter at present. Despised hunger, there’s where it is.”

Following the prince’s rise from where he had been nestled for the greater part of the afternoon, Horatio stood to discover an ache sitting high in his spine; no matter how far extended Hamlet’s luxuries, sitting in any one position for so long would always have the same effect. “A problem easily solved by one of your serving men,” Horatio said, stretching.

“Not so late,” Hamlet responded, gliding across the chamber and closing to space between them. He rested a hand on Horatio’s workspace, fingers lying among bits of dried ink stuck firmly to the wood. Upon his beckoning, Horatio leaned closer, dipping his head as Hamlet’s other hand came to meet the softness of his cheek. A thumb played lazily at his lips. “It goes against my fashion,” the prince continued, referencing his humble persona.

A smile played at Horatio’s lips, tugging at the corners. “Such restraint,” he hummed in amusement, delving now into wit he had been warned to avoid around his betters; as apparently the majority at Wittenberg were the fiendish nobility which fell directly into the category, he was often willing to take the risk and exercise it before the prince in private. “Do you have the faith to waste the evening in fast?” he asked.

“In worship, perhaps, but…,” Hamlet’s voice trickled into silence as his stomach growled. Freezing as it was, his face became painted with deeply hued embarrassment.

Horatio followed him in soft laughter. He tended to the singular candle struggling dimly still at his station, waxy stump stranded amid the melted lake which surrounded it. The persistent glow flickered yellow on his face until he put it out, methodically seeking a replacement as he spoke. “To bed you either in cold or hot blood would be Heracle’s task, my lord, so long as your appetite wrongly persists.”

“What of the refectory, so late?”

“Serving none.”

The prince pursed his lips, dissatisfied with the answer. He sought immediately for his doublet and cloak, all in a pile within the confines of his wardrobe and about it--he could only be bothered to organize himself on Horatio’s insistent prodding, and thus lived almost entirely out of piles. Had he not had a distinctly superficial nature, he might have gone out all unlaced, a servantless heathen. “Unattended, then?” he asked, now seeking his shoes. His eyes were bright in the poor light and dreary evening, flickering with the beginnings of an escapade.

“To what end, my lord?” Horatio sighed, searching already for his own outerwear; there was no use in arguing.

“Though the souls retire, give it understanding that the necessary tools remain. Thus, I might unearth common knowledge with them and concoct something for myself.” Consumed in his own supposed brilliance, Hamlet proceeded, shoving a door open and making quick flight toward the stairs.

“Indeed, ‘concoct’,” Horatio mumbled, setting everything in order before slinking off in the dark to pursue him.

Heaven’s waters pelted the world with a bitter and unforgiving cold, and the journey to Hamlet’s nourishment was punctuated by the two of them ducking in doorways and seeking the next rare and dry place to stand. A poorly calculated mistake had them beneath a tree, rain hitting hard against Horatio’s cap and shoulders. It was an old oak that granted them nothing, leaves piling on the ground around it not for the changing seasons, it seemed, but for the sheer volume it produced. In a better week, it might have been a good place to lounge or to study, but that may have been solely how Horatio categorized his visited locations: those good for studying and those not. With rain leaking through the branches and onto his face, the tree was now only the latter. He shivered, and the prince beside him held his cloak over his head as if it were a tent of his own design, scanning the grounds until he saw the fastest path across a stretch of uncovered grass. Heaving a deep breath inward, he moved again. Each step greeted him with new pangs of freezing wetness around his shoes and ankles, and by the time he led the other into the building they had been so haphazardly seeking, he looked as if he’d stepped into the bath without consideration toward getting undressed. Out of resentment for the elements, Hamlet closed his last set of doors with an indignant slam.

The hall was pitch black, and sound was soon all the two had between them. With a groan, Hamlet stripped his cloak off, throwing it to the floor while curses slipped from behind his teeth. Horatio grasped in the dark, hearing afterward the prince plopping to the ground himself, tossing his shoes into the abyss. “‘Sblood, we’ll make something warm,” he hissed, feeling for the wall to guide him. His fingers laced with Horatio’s over the rough surface. “Dispatch these robes lest cursed nature has you abed too soon.”

“My lord, I shall fare no better in Adam’s doublet than in my own, whiles we linger hither, oven thither and unlit,” Horatio chattered.

“Mark me: I will light it,” Hamlet replied, tugging on a portion of the other’s sleeve as they traveled by the direction of the architecture they could feel for themselves.

True, they did eventually map their way into the kitchen, and soon Horatio’s eyes adjusted. His first clear sight was of Hamlet stumbling along in the darkness, reaching for a table’s edge and knocking a resting pot out of place. If not for the discomfort--even after stripping away his outerwear--Horatio might have been free to giggle. He hugged himself, rubbing along his arms. “The peacock, exotic, has no room to splay its feathers here. It knows not what to light,” he mused.

Hamlet gave the other a brief, indignant look before returning to an all-but-successful search for elements with which he was familiar. “The sparrow cries knowledge, pleases none with its song,” he echoed, soon finding the hearth and lingering triumphantly there.

Minutes passed, and still he lingered. The two held position until the foundation of their wills crumbled beneath the weight of the cold hanging on their shoulders. Even in the darkness, obscured, Horatio hated to see the prince shiver. “Shall I…?” he began, trailing off once he got wind of Hamlet’s subtle nod.

Though he was exceedingly familiar with the kitchen’s workings, for the sake of peacock’s pride, Horatio worked in leisure, even going so far as to feign difficulty in stoking the fire. All the while, Hamlet hovered over him, and it had become clear now in the light that he had abandoned all but his shirt and hose. When he leaned close, it was very near hot-blooded murder churned low in Horatio’s stomach. He knelt by the fire to warm himself, wishing he weren’t so uncomfortable that he couldn’t succumb mindlessly to need. “What will we make?” he breathed.

Again, the prince gazed bashfully into the darkness, hoping for some inspiration there. And again, Horatio broke the silence with his assistance.

“Rice, spinach, porridge, pies, soup, stew--”

“Stew,” Hamlet snapped as if the word were his own invention.

“And where is Master Stew’s beginning, my lord?”

A blank look. Then, knitted brow. Effort flashed like lightning behind the prince’s eyes. “The meat,” he said finally, clap of thunder rumbling over both of their heads.

Satisfied, Horatio returned to his feet, bringing together his newly warmed hands and rubbing them to keep them so. He sought a candle, making due with a pathetic bit of wax that lit his way until he found the stores of food. Anxiety rolled over in him as he found his way to the salted beef, though he knew well enough that the law was menial to him as a student, especially as one working under the bidding of the prince of Denmark. Still, he took sparingly, conscious of even nonexistent consequence, passing the beef off to a space on the table before moving along to the onions and spices. For just the two of them, he reasoned, no one would be the wiser to what was missing. He stood over a final collection of ingredients hoping this was the case.

In the meantime, Hamlet had located at least a pot to cook in, a large wooden spoon and a singular knife, which he brandished proudly over the table’s opposite end. “Are you able?” Horatio asked, brow raised.

“Truly.”

“To cube the beef?”

Although the prince nodded, something of the image of him with a knife in his hand and a gleam in his eye was deeply unsettling. Tentatively, Horatio pushed the meat toward him, watching as he took hold of it. Out of anticipation and fancy, his motions were unsteady, and when he brought the knife down through the flesh, childish delight danced across his face. He was, Horatio thought fleetingly, indeed like a child, holding the knife awkwardly and looking up between cuts, beaming and seeking approval. Horatio smiled back at him, reaching across to move his free hand further aside. Despite the action, in another moment he cut himself. Like a child, he insisted that he continue, finger nicked, brooding the very second Horatio wrestled the knife away from him and bid him wrap his small wound. Hamlet then stood resentfully at the table’s edge, watching with sudden awe as the other made quick and effortless work of the meat. When their eyes met again, his resentment turned to pleading. His image of a humble existence was being compromised by his incapability. There was nothing left but to take pity on him. Horatio set the knife down and rolled an onion his way. “Peel,” he commanded, leaving Hamlet for another brief moment to fetch water.

From the corner of the kitchen he ventured to, Horatio heard the bits of skin ripping and drifting to the floor. He smiled to himself, transitioning from damp melancholy into ease. Hamlet called from his place at the table, “Have I reached the final layer?”

Horatio glanced over his shoulder, and Hamlet held up the white orb of his success, question hanging in his face. The greatest warmth of the evening flowered in Horatio’s chest as he nodded, Hamlet responding in a wave of shining pride. “I should cut this with more success than the former,” he argued, falling back on the pleas that serviced him so much better than plain rhetoric.

“I pray you peel one more, and then I should instruct you, my lord,” Horatio replied, eager for compromise.

“‘Tis wenches’ work, Horatio! It begs not instruction.”

Horatio huffed, hauling the water over to the hearth. “And you are no wench, my lord,” he groaned, heaving the pot onto the necessary hook. “You lose nothing by lacking their unpaved practice, least of all my service. Let me teach.”

The prince watched the other feed the beef into the water, juggling the onion from hand to hand. Another clap of thunder up above. He sighed, submitting and receiving a kiss on the forehead for his compliance. Letting himself believe it was by his own choice, he let Horatio take his onion, splitting it in half before handing it back. By his own choice, he let Horatio guide his hands, face dwelling close over his shoulder as he assisted the prince from behind. There, his words would reach Hamlet in whispers, and there they were as good as sweet nothings. _Fingers curled inward, my lord...Cut just short of the end, my lord...Now through the center, my lord._ Heat pressed in Hamlet’s ears, lower. He had a growing pile of diced onion before him, and he was enjoying himself until his eyes began to burn. He blinked--once, twice, thrice--and abandoned his work, Horatio still over his shoulder. “What is the matter, my lord?” he murmured, making no motion to retract his arms.

“My eyes.”

“Oh, refrain from--”

Hamlet brought his hands up to face, pressing his fingers against his eyes to wipe away their sudden excess of tears, only to be met with more pain, increasing.  
“--Refrain from rubbing them, my lord. The onion,” Horatio said in afterthought, following the prince as he sunk to the floor.

“ _Christ_ ,” Hamlet cried, eyes squeezing shut. Despite their best effort with the fire and located candles, the room was, for him, dark again. He froze in place, feeling the heat of the hearth on the side of his face. Out of instinct, he reached for Horatio, arms winding around uselessly as Horatio broke away from him. “What of the onion?” he continued to whine.

Horatio responded from over another filled pitcher of water, toting it around with him as he now sought any piece of clean cloth that wasn’t his own shirt: “It holds certain potency, my lord--hold still; I have your remedy.” It would have to be his shirt. Horatio wet it after it had only just begun to dry, dabbing the loose bits of sleeve over the other’s eyes.

“Pox on it,” Hamlet spat, blinking again until his sight was restored. “Wenches’ work,” he repeated bitterly, now eyeing the onion on the table with distaste.

Cupping the prince’s face, Horatio pulling him into a kiss, first on the lips and then pecking at the crease in his brow to soften it. Hamlet returned him in open-mouthed response, content until his stomach stopped him with another growl. He remembered himself, or rather, the stew. “How long now?” he asked quietly.

Pushing up off of the cold stone beneath him, Horatio peered into the pot, and satisfied with the sight of a rolling boil, brought together a number of gathered spices to add to the contents. “Not long,” he replied, scooping the onion in along with all else and rinsing his hands to avoid any repeat incident.

“Too long,” Hamlet moaned, looking into the pot himself, though not knowing at all what the state of the food within meant to its completion. His hands fells upon his hips, and his head rolled lazily on its perch until he came to meet Horatio’s gaze. “Other appetites beg feeding in replacement.”

“Not so long now,” Horatio repeated, tongue dragging absently along his lips.

“Longer.”

Thunder still, and Horatio reasoned it unlikely that they would be discovered. With his outer clothes somewhere on the floor in the adjacent chamber, the prince was already nearly bear. And in any case, Horatio’s shirt was wet again, and he longed to remove it in exchange for what he knew to be greater heat. Really, it came down to heat alone. They would make something warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the beef stew recipe
> 
> Flour  
> Black pepper  
> Beef, cut into cubes, and its broth  
> Olive oil  
> Red wine vinegar  
> Bay leaves  
> Onion, diced  
> Salt  
> Cinnamon  
> Parsley  
> Sage
> 
> Coat the beef in flour and pepper. Heat the oil in a large pot, add beef slowly to avoid overcrowding until all is browned. Remove the beef and replace with vinegar, scraping the pot's bottom before returning the meat alongside broth and bay leaves. Bring all to a boil before reducing to a slow simmer. Cook until beef is tender, adding onion and other herbs/spices. Replenish broth with more or water if starting to dry. Skim as needed until vegetables are tender. Serve.


End file.
